Journal of European Baptist Studies, Volume 7, No. 3, 2007

1 Notice, though, that the fellowship of the Spirit implies a common life whose practices suit, not this present age, but the age to come - a community at once redeemed and redemptive. The other aspect of McClendon’s ecclesiology is that he centres it on Christ. ‘[The church is] a company of equals, equally gifted by God’s Spirit, equally responsible for the community-building whose accomplishment is the fullness of Christ.’ Miraslov Volf speaks in a similar way, ‘For in so assembling, Christians attest that Christ is the determining ground of their lives - that in him they have found freedom, orientation, and power.’ 49 Likewise, Barger argues for a church membership that is witness to the resurrection life of Christ. 50 So there are theologians (some of whom come from a covenant model, others who don’t), who generally speak of membership in similar ways. They all emphasise the fellowship aspect, though some are beginning 42 See, for example, Moltmann, The Church, pp. 115, 116-18, 289-99, 314—17; and. The Open Church , pp. 9, 29, 50-63, 125. 43 Moltmann, The Church, p. 317. 44 See J.W. McClendon, Jr., Systematic Theology, vol. 2, ‘Doctrine’ (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), particularly, pp. 366-71. 45 Ibid., pp. 371, 367, respectively. 46 Ibid., p. 367. 47 Ibid., p. 367, emphasis added. 48 Ibid., p. 366, emphasis original. 49 Ibid., p. 369. M. Volf, ‘Community Formation as an Image of the Triune God: A Congregational Model of Church Order and Life’, in R.N. Longenecker (ed.). Community Formation in the Early Church and in the Church Today (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2002), p. 217. See also, M. Volf, After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1998), pp. 137-45. 50 Rick Barger, A New and Right Spirit. Creating an Authentic Church in a Consumer Culture (Herndon: Alban Institute, 2005). 14 Journal of European Baptist Studies to speak of the crucial missional role in which such members are to be engaged. Reflections Stanley Grenz says, ‘No true community of faith fails to set its sights outward toward the world in which it is called to live’. 51 It is that dynamic combination of and relationship between community, on the one hand, and mission, on the other, that demonstrates that the covenant idea is both valid and relevant to our post-modern world. In his seminal work, Transforming Mission, Bosch suggests that ‘Christian mission gives expression to the dynamic relationship between God and the world.’ 52 Later he articulates again more fully, ‘Mission is, quite simply, the participation of Christians in the liberating mission of Jesus. It is the good news of God’s love, incarnated in the witness of a community, for the sake of the world.’ 53 Certainly, though Baptists ‘still feel the double pull of social responsibility issues and mission’, 54 contemporary Baptist writers would underline the central significance of holistic mission in